Sailors in a Starry Sea
by otblock57
Summary: Beacon is destroyed, as is the planet it was built on, by a sudden resurgence of the Grimm. Eight students, a socially inept AI, and a spaceship. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Vacating the Vale

Sailors in a Starry Sea

**First fanfiction, here's hoping it doesn't suck.**

**Chapter 1: Vacating the Vale**

Beacon Academy, the star of Vale, an institution producing the finest fighters and minds, termed Hunters. Long ago, the Beacon academy served purely to produce fighting men and women to push back the darkness, but as the people of Remnant thrust themselves from the surface of the world and journeyed to the stars, the overwhelming threat of Grimm was alleviated by one of the greatest periods of expansion in recorded history. Remnant went from being a doomed backwater planet to the name for a massive region of space under the cultural influence of its people. With population stresses alleviated by the new frontier, and with prodigious orbital bombardment spearheaded by Atlesian military personnel, the Grimm threat vanished into children's stories and history books. But above all, the planet of Remnant stood as the focal point of a new, cosmic mankind, the gem in the crown of humanity's far flung stellar possessions. Unfortunately, humanity was soon to learn the folly of keeping all of one's eggs in a single basket, planet sized or no.

* * *

Hunters still worked their trade, but have evolved from being solely a military force to a strange blend of military, police, and educated professional. Piloting, engineering, combat, all were fields explored by the finest academic institution in the cosmos. However, many idiosyncrasies of the older, martial Hunter system were still kept even when dedicated fighting teams were rarely needed anywhere other than far flung portions of the settled region of space.

At Beacon, two of these said teams were getting up for a school assembly. Why anyone would convene an assembly at 8:30 in the morning, no one could answer. Gathering hundreds of sleep deprived teens and young adults and their matching arsenal in a single room was even less advisable, but who can say how Headmaster Ozpin's mind functions?

And so team RWBY and team JNPR rushed to get prepared, having overslept thanks to an unfortunate incident involving both dorms and a gross mishandling of electric dust. The two groups were strange all on their own, and their near constant interaction created one of the strangest groups of eight in the academy's history. By 8:25 the group was out the door and dashing towards the assembly hall, hoping not to be late and evoke the wrath of Mrs. Goodwitch. However, by the time the group had reached their destination, the clock had struck 8:31 and the doors were soundly shut.

"This is all your fault, you dolt!" said Weiss, brows furrowed.

Ruby flushed with embarrassment, "It's not my fault the dust measurements were wrong!"

"It is precisely your fault, I knew you shouldn't have been fiddling with dust without measuring it properly!"

"Calm down, the both of you. It was a _shocking_ turn of events!" Yang completely ignored the groans of disappointment, questioning "Say Pyrrha, can you do something with this door? Use your semblance to fiddle with the lock, let us sneak in?"

"I suppose I could..." but before Pyrrha could concede to her friend's request, a great roar in the distance and rumbling throughout the building interrupted her, throwing most of the group off balance and sending Jaune tumbling.

"What was that?" asked Jaune, as he climbed back to his feet, still a little unsteady on the disturbed floor. Before he could be answered, a greater rumbling, even closer this time, sent most of the group to the floor. Then shouting and faint weapons fire through the thick doors of the assembly hall, and seconds later a thick black goo, more like tar, began to seep under the door, hissing and steaming as the sounds of battle grew louder.

Panicked, the group tried to force the door open, but as blades and dust carved away at the ancient wood of the door, more of the tar like substance began to seep through, nearly catching their weapons in the disgusting ooze, which bubbled and warped as limbs began to take shape from the liquid, lanky arms with hints of red groping at the air. Then… _things_ began to crawl from the inky black, creatures like those out of antiquity, out of old books and stories for children.

"Are… are those Grimm?" asked Jaune, backing from the foul creatures that scratched at the floor with their claws, half formed and pushing through the walls. The black had now spread to the entirety of the door, and all across its massive width bone white masks began to push out of the door, jaws snapping and claws flashing in the air. One malformed wolf like creature stumbled out of the door, its red eyes gleaming with malevolence, muscles stretching as it prepared to lunge. But before the beast could strike, a hammer blow shattered the beast's mask and near crushed it into the floor.

"That… was pretty satisfying! I could stand to do that a lot more often!," quipped Nora, hefting her hammer onto her shoulder and staring the wall of half formed Grimm, some of which were nearly free of the wall.

"Guys? I think this problem might be a little bigger than we thought," Blake was looking out of a nearby window, and the moment the others looked out, they realized why.

Beacon's Campus was in total chaos, and great pillars of dark smoke could be seen rising in the distance, from the direction of metropolitan Vale. Rapidly growing packs of dark wolves prowled the lawns of Beacon academy, rapidly dispatching the unfortunates caught out in the open as larger Grimm began to take form from yet more of the disgusting liquid, which didn't pour or spill but instead crept, climbing up stairwells and plants to paint the campus a pitch black. A long arm, easy as tall as three people and ended with claws like sabers tore at the ground, groping for traction, seemingly pulling itself out of a massive pool of the tar. As the fighting inside the assembly hall began to grow quieter, the rapid patter of gunshots slowing to a crawl, the dark creatures- Grimm?-reigned terror unmolested.

"The assembly hall… everybody…. Are they?" Ruby choked out, as the only sound in the room became the hissing of the sludge which was now rapidly spreading across the hallway.

"We should go. If the entirety of the student body except for us, plus the teachers, couldn't hold off these things, I don't think we can," Ren remarked, glancing at the slowly emerging Grimm which were beginning to surround them as the strange ooze crept down the hall and began to pool at their feet. They desperately wanted to help, but facing an unknown enemy straight out of fairy tales would be enough to make anyone flee, especially after they had possibly killed many of their friends.

"What's the plan?" asked Yang, pausing to unload one of her her gauntlets onto a stray Grimm which buckled under the force of dust ammunition as Yang caught up with her team mates and friends.

"I think I've got something guys, follow me!" Jaune took a sharp turn, nearly sprinting down a stairwell and running into the complex series of maintenance hallways and passages which snaked under the school.

"How do you know what's down here Jaune? It's certainly not a place a normal student would find, unless you managed to get lost." remarked Weiss.

"I've always wanted to handle my fear of flying, right? And my dad always told me to face your fears head on! So I talked with some of the teachers about spending a bit of extracurricular time learning how to work with Bullheads and sometimes even bigger craft. These tunnels are the fastest way to the hangars under Beacon."

"Really, Jaune? So that's where you've been during weekends?" asked Pyrrha, satisfied to find the reason behind her team leader's occasional disappearances from their dorm.

"Yep!" Jaune really did know his way around the tunnels, weaving through side passages and hoping rails installed in the floor with a familiarity that was quite remarkable. Even though deep under Beacon, signs of the Grimm which had struck out of nowhere were starting to show, tiny droplets of black leaking from old pipes or hissing in drains. The group dashed into the hangar to find dozens of craft, mostly small Bullheads used to ferry hunters to and from missions, but with the occasional larger hull standing out, with airships and even a few corvettes and frigates designed for space, to train hunters how to fight in zero-G environments in order to help cut down on piracy. However, the open air nature of the hangar meant most of the ships were crawling with Grimm and covered in the pitch black tar which served as their breeding ground.

"There!" Ruby exclaimed, pointing to a truly massive ship in the corner. Sleek, colored white and pale blue, the craft screamed Atlesian design, but the strange positioning of the ship at the far end of the hangar could only be explained by the obvious signs of age which marked the ship, rust mottling its sides and thick layers of dust covering most of it.

Weiss sighed, "That hunk of junk, really? Atlas hasn't made ships like that in at least a few decades."

"Well it's all we've got," remarked Jaune, "and it should be flyable even if it is a little old. All the parts seem to be there."

"Seem to be?!"

* * *

After prying open the door and clambering inside, the two teams found themselves in an aging, cramped ship that looked years out of date with dust to match.

"Ugh, how old is this thing?" Yang swept a cloud of dust off a counter, "There's no way something this old could be operational."

"Well it was in the hangar, wasn't it?" Jaune was fiddling with a complex control panel, "I kind of recognize these controls. When I squint." He pressed a particularly large, red button on the panel.

"Salutations!" Jaune tripped over backwards as the ship's ancient speakers suddenly released a greeting. "It has been…. 19 years, 6 months, 3 days, 7 hours, and 11 seconds since previous shutdown! You appear to be a new pilot! I am PENNI, the Piloting, Engineering, and Navigation Network Interface, welcome aboard the Quicksilver!"

"Can you repeat that again?" Dusting himself off, Jaune leaned into to look at the control panel, analyzing it with a cautious eye. The others looked on in interest.

"It has been…. 19 years, 6 months, 3 days, 7 hours, and 11 seconds since previous shutdown! You appear to be a new pilot! I am PENNI, the Piloting, Engineering, and Navigation Network Interface, welcome aboard the Quicksilver!" The ship clearly took its instructions literally.

"Can you get us out of here, Penny?" Ruby looked to the console expectantly. "We're in a bit of a hurry?"

"I certainly can!" Penny responded, before the engines howled and the entire group was sent stumbling to the back of the ship, along with several years worth of accumulated dust.

* * *

The Quicksilver, despite its age, tore through the atmosphere at a remarkable pace, and soon the group could see the entirety of Vale stretching below them, usually a site to be marveled over (if you weren't busy evacuating your lunch, in one case) but now the site inspired only horror. Flames licked the sky, pouring out of windows and doors where the black tar hadn't already come through, flowing like an insidious river through the entirety of the city, foul arms the size of city blocks taking form in the foul liquid as hordes of coal black beasts poured over walls and buildings, crashing through windows and releasing their guttural cries.

The eight students looked out of the ship's window, awestruck by these beasts legend returning in the flesh, and as Jaune stumbled to the back of the ship to wretch, they could see other ships launching in panic, people desperately trying to climb into full bullheads as they launched from hastily fortified launchpads. However, being in the air was no guarantee of safety, as flocks of flying Grimm joined the fray, assaulting defenseless passenger crafts.

Soon enough the streets of Vale were covered in pitch black ooze, bubbling in the sewers and flowing over the top of the city's highest skyscrapers, and from the height of the Quicksilver, the city looked less like a bustling metropolis and more like an abyss of black, speckled with bone white and blood red stars, the features of the Grimm. As the ooze grew, so did the creatures it spawned. Goliaths prowled the streets, pushing aside skyscrapers with their bulk, smaller Grimm swarming over their hides like bees around a terrifying hive. Yet even more worrying creatures began to take form, beasts the size of mountains hinted at through arms and legs, horrifyingly bent and proportioned, stretching the length of streets and gaining shape on the sides of buildings.

* * *

The Quicksilver sat serenely in high orbit, the old metal of its body gleaming in the light of the sun, the dirt and dust stripped from its body by its meteoric flight out of the atmosphere. However the mood of its inhabitants was grim, as the actual Grimm had climbed out of the storybooks to terrorize what was once their home. The resulting exodus to Remnant orbit had caused problems all on its own.

Remnant's orbit was clogged with ships and stations, years of infrastructure and satellites, and soon enough an evacuating ship was struck by a passing communications satellite which had long since been decommissioned. The resulting spray of shrapnel was just as fast, with chips of paint or rivets hitting with the force of bullets. And the collisions cascaded. One shattered ship fills the orbit with debris, which hits more ships and more stations. As Remnant's panicked distress signals were answered by ships from nearby star systems, the pile up only got worse, ships dropping straight out of faster than light movement into a minefield. The faster than light communications systems which summoned these very ships were victim as well, and with Remnant serving as a hub for all FTL communication on anything other than local levels, information became even more clouded and muddled.

And like that, the star in humanity's crown vanished, and mankind was once more left a remnant of its former self. A pretty bad school day, in all honesty.

* * *

**These sections are basically going to be large chunks of exposition on how I imagine the world to be, in a science fiction context. Completely unnecessary, and I hope to cover all the world building I need in story, but just something to put my thoughts out there. Think of it as a Wikipedia article or the like in universe, maybe an essay by a student, if the tone isn't professional. Like an omake, but less fun. **

_On Dust:_

_ Dust has long been a tool for man, to keep their numberless foe at bay. As factories filled the sky with smog and as engines howled the need for dust grew even more, fuel for man's growing industries as well as their more complex defenses. And when finally freed from gravity's shackles, dust became even more important. The fuel for the great ships that tore through the void, the great munitions used to eventually bombard the planet clean of Grimm, and most critically, for faster than light transportation. Mixed dust, the loose refuse of dust mining became mankind's greatest asset when it was realized the strange energies produced by this mixture of dust could warp space and time in strange ways, bending and twisting the delicate weave which made up the fabric of the universe. What was once mining refuse, scrap dumped at the sides of mining sites, became a coveted resource overnight. _

_ The old dust mines, taxed through years of strenuous mining, were simply not returning the yields desired, until a fledgling mining company had an idea. Why not look for dust in the same stars we explore with it? And so, the Schnee Dust Company made it's first windfall mining the moon and the countless meteors which floated through space. The company boomed, making a handsome profit off of the dust and selling the rubble to a hungry Atlesian military, grateful for every gram of mass it could muster for orbital bombardment. The company was criticized though, most notably for its practices in regards to their underpaid Faunus workers, who labored in dangerous conditions in shelters that could be called slap-dash at best and death traps at worst. But the dust flowed, and the ships flew. What else could mankind need?_

* * *

**First chapter. Yay. So the story begins. I realize I may have written myself into a corner immediately, having no idea how to properly write normal characters, much less grieving and traumatized ones. But I guess I'll learn. If you're worried about the other main characters, anyone of importance is probably alive, but scattered to the wind. I can imagine Patch being a quaint backwater world somewhere, covered in miles and miles of farmland. I could imagine a reunion to both resupply the ship and to provide some much needed emotional support. The people of Atlas, some of our favorite teams, and Torchwick are probably still kicking out there. **

** If anyone's played Starbound then this intro will be extremely familiar, I'd bet. I hope to use some vague parts of that plot (or maybe just this intro) in company with some general meandering/spacey slice of life stuff. If you haven't read _Journey into the Stars _by SleepinEyes yet, do so. It does a wonderful job of making an interesting sci fi world out of RWBY, and it is a big inspiration of mine. I will prewarn you it's on hiatus, but it is sooooo good. So thank SleepinEyes and Chucklefish Games, along with our most glorious Oum, if anything here was even approaching quality. Also, the cascading debris thing is actually a real idea, called Kessler syndrome where density of debris is so high it raises the chances of a collision producing further debris.**

** I will admit I have only watched to season 5. Not extremely motivated to continue, but the series already has provided more than enough fertile soil for me to grow my silly ideas on. If there are any things I say that go against the canon of volume 6 or further, then tack it on my complete and total ignorance. Don't care if I get spoiled honestly, so a crash course of major plot points would be pretty cool. Don't expect me to know plot details at all though. Speaking of low expectations, I have no idea how frequently I'll update this thing. This chapter has cooked for days or weeks on end. We'll see how it goes. Is using mankind denigrating to Faunus? I don't know. **


	2. The Researcher's Refuge

**Chapter 2: The Researcher's Refuge**

** I'm very appreciative for everyone who took the time to read this, and everyone who decided to come back after my hiatus. I'm a frequent procrastinator.**

* * *

"This is a much bigger ship than I first thought it would be." Ruby was glancing the around the rather spacious bridge of the Quicksilver.

"They have bigger ships in Atlas, you know. Newer ones, too." Weiss was eyeing the seats, which were caked in layers of dust. The mundane, dirty type that a Schnee would never be associated with.

"Maybe we should explore! See if there's any food! Come on Renny!" Nora dragged Ren off into the depths of the ship.

"Not a bad idea, maybe we should all look around. Split up and see if there's anything unusual around?" Jaune suggested, looking down the hall Nora and Ren vanished into.

* * *

"Finally, the food!" Nora exclaimed, having located a cargo room within in the ship's depths, full to bursting with boxes of some sort of food.

"Military food, maybe? Some kind of MRE to eat?" Ren pondered, looking at a simple box marked only with the word FOOD in large letters. Clearly, the whoever made this package had a creative streak.

"Let's try one out!" Nora pried the box open, only to see a brick of… something inside. "Huh?" Turning it over and vigorously shaking the container, the mysterious food they were promised hit the floor with a worrying clunk.

"I don't think that's what food looks like."

"Well maybe we can do something with it? They're like bricks… bricks in a castle!"

* * *

Blake wandered the long halls of the mysterious ship she and her friends had found themselves on, searching for anything of interest. Soon enough she found a plain, unmarked door that slid open with some concerted effort.

"This ship is really an antique, huh. I wonder what's in here..."

The room Blake found herself in was filled with bookshelves, dozens of books, and a few computer consoles scattered between them. Blake smiled, and started continued her exploration of the ship, or at least the ship's selection of literature.

"Wow, that's a lot of dust!" Ruby exclaimed, looking around the stockpile of dust she and Weiss had found. Rows and rows of shelving full with all types of dust stretched throughout the room, ready to be used.

"Wait a second Ruby, there's something up with this dust." Weiss examined one of the dust shells carefully.

"Dust is still dust, isn't it?" Ruby said, looking at the dust as if it had changed into something completely different.

Weiss sighed. "Sure, it's dust just like the type the Schnee company mines from, and dust doesn't go bad over time or anything, but..." She tries to fit one of the dust cartridges into her weapon, Myrtenaster. "They're all 20 years old and designed for weapons that haven't been used in 20 years. They're useless."

"Would they have been useful if they even were modern? I mean, we all use custom weapons and it's not like we can just use any old ammunition."

"I suppose so, Ruby. But it is not a good sign regardless. We may have just stumbled our way into a junk heap, not that it wasn't obvious."

* * *

"Hey Pyrrha, could you help me here?" Jaune requested, "This door isn't opening." He was pushing his hardest against a rusted metal door, but it refused to budge.

"Sure!" Pyrrha smiled, activated her semblance, and opened the door. Jaune, who was leaning against the door in a vain attempt to move it, went tumbling to the floor.

"I sure hope this doesn't become a habit..." Jaune remarked, before turning and seeing what this new mystery room had in store. It did not disappoint. Inside was a hangar, nothing compared to the sprawling complex under Beacon, of course, but a cramped room which held a sleek Bullhead, along with barely enough room to walk around it.

"Wow. I think I know how to fly one of these…. A little older than what I'm used to, but that's whole ship, huh" Jaune was looking at the Bullhead contemplatively.

However, Pyrrha's attention was instead focused on the walls, or more importantly the dozens of storage containers integrated into the wall. She tentatively opened one, and found it to be full of tools and hardware.

* * *

Yang was exploring the ship at a faster pace than her teammates, and having found a small gym and training room already, she was curious to see what else the ship had in store. She certainly hoped the ship had been designed with rooms, for one.

Yang opened the next door she came across, and almost closed it as soon as she had. Now she knew the doors were soundproof, because there was no way she couldn't have the heard the machinery roaring in this room. After getting one whiff of the room's smell, she finished the job and slammed the door shut behind her.

"Ugh, what a smell! What could possibly be in that room?" Yang looked for any sort of sign or label, but the blank, unremarkable hallways of the ship eluded her search. She sighed. "Maybe I should just head back to the bridge of the ship, see what the others have found..."

* * *

"So… what did we find?" Jaune was sitting on the captain's chair, spinning with gusto. "Pyrrha and I found a hangar, with a Bullhead. I do know how to fly those. Sort of..."

Weiss sighed and pulled out a handful of dust cartridges. "They're all useless. Made 20 years ago and therefore completely useless, unless somebody has an heirloom weapon." Jaune perked up. "That fires dust, Jaune."

"We haven't found much of use on our front either." Ren remarked. He sat calmly, contemplatively, on another, non-spinning chair as Nora constructed some strange building out of bad rations behind him. "All of the rations are completely useless. Hard as bricks, and with all the nutritional value after all these years."

"Has anyone seen Yang and Blake?" Pyrrha asked, brows furrowed with concern. Just then, the door to slid open, revealing Yang with an irate Blake in tow.

"We have arrived!" pronounced Yang, while Blake sighed and looked back to her book. "Stop being so _catty,_ Blake!" Everyone except for Blake and Yang groaned. "If you didn't know, Blake has found the ship's library, not that she would have left it if I hadn't found her. I also found some other room, that smelled horrible. Can't imagine what good use there is for a room like that in a ship..."

"Maybe Penny would know?" Ruby suggested, glancing at the plain banks of computers ringing the cockpit.

"Yes, I do know! The room your blond friend approached is the Quicksilver's state of the art recycling plant!"

"Like… metal cans?" Jaune asked, "That doesn't seem very useful"

"No, the room has an organic recycler, using bacteria to process waste or other forms of organic refuse and turn it into food! The canteen is the next door over!"

* * *

A little disappointed in getting so close to her goal but falling short, Yang lead the way to the kitchen, cursing the ship's lack of signage all the way there. A large part of the canteen was filled with mundane tables and benches, with nary a fridge or pantry in sight. However, Nora located the sparse appliances for cooking in a corner of the room.

"How are we supposed to cook with this?" Nora peered at the strange device which stood alone in the 'kitchen' section of the room, which looked quite like a 3D printer, if somebody had attached a touchscreen to the side. After a few seconds of fiddling on Nora's part, the machine awoke and began to zoom back and forth, depositing a rather unappealing gel like substance.

"What did you just do, Nora? Did you ask for some food?" Ruby was very curious, and more importantly, very hungry. Surprisingly, lunch had been canceled after the planet was ripped apart. Inconvenient, that.

"I just asked for some pancakes! We didn't have time for breakfast so…." The food printer let out a satsifying ding. "Come to mama!" Nora proclaimed, scooping a plate of questionably appetizing tan disks up and inhaled them with all the grace of a starved animal. Unlike a starving animal, Nora stopped and almost choked.

"What? Are you okay? Is the food okay?

"That… tasted like sugary cardboard. Ren could make better pancakes in his sleep!" Looking closely at the pancakes, and the way they wobbled with Nora's excited gesturing, the others soon realized what issue they had stumbled into.

"AND THE FOOD'S BAD TOO?"

* * *

After a meal of disgusting nutrient gel that couldn't be reasonably compared to actual food, the two teams held another impromptu meeting in the cockpit of the ship, their stomachs full but disheartened in spite of that.

"So… where do we go from here?" Jaune asked, looking at the rest of his teammates (plus team RWBY).

"My dad lives at Patch, so maybe we could go there? They farm and stuff… so it would be better than that atrocity against cooking in the canteen." Ruby answered, looking to Yang for confirmation.

"I mean sure, Dad does… but I'm not sure if we can get there using this ship. Penny, do you know how to get there?"

"I have… one preloaded destination in my databanks!" Penny replied. "It's a research station, in fact!"

"Well… I guess it's the only place we can go?" Pyrrha suggested. The rest of the group agreed, not really seeing any other option than sitting around and eating bad food.

"Alright then!" Penny replied. And then, space _bent_.

* * *

"I will never, never get used to that," Jaune groaned, crouching as he vacated his stomach of the cardboard he had filled it with half an hour earlier.

"I notice that you are vomiting. Please note that _all_ organic matter must be used in the bacteria vats in order to keep supplies from running out." Penny warned.

"Really?" Jaune groaned.

The other seven looked through the window, curious about the research station Penny had guided them to, having rapidly shook off the nausea that came with faster than light travel. The black void of space was speckled with stars, but in the distance they could see what really set the star system apart: two stars danced around each other, one a milky white which was dwarfed by a massive red star, a thin ribbon of plasma being pulled from the larger to the smaller.

"It's beautiful!" Ruby's eyes sparkled, the light of the cosmos reflected off of her eyes. She leaned up close against the ship's broad window along with Nora, as the others admired the scenery, if less enthusiastically. However, their awestruck silence was interrupted by static over the radio.

"What's that?" Weiss was covering her ears as the radio let out a mix of garbled sound. "It's doesn't sound like anything, other than an annoyance."

Blake looked up, bow twitching. "I think I might recognize it. It's normal radio conversation, just encrypted."

"And you know this, how?" Weiss narrowed her eyes at Blake.

"Hey, where is all this radio transmission coming from? And why would we even need to encrypt it, if we're at some research station?" Yang asked, redirecting the group's attention from a nervous Blake.

"The sensors indicate plasma near the research station, along with traces of dust. The station appears to be under attack." Penny answered.

"What!?"

* * *

** Another info-dump omake, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Please don't feel the need to read this, it's basically just me putting jumbled thoughts on worl****d****building into writing.**

_On Faster Than Light:_

_ Faster Than Light, or FTL, is a general term referring to things, whether information or physical objects such as ships, hunters, or cargo, moving faster than the speed of light, usually between systems. The main categories this can be divided into are communication, for the spread of data, and transport for anything physical. Surprisingly, of the two, moving physical goods around was remarkably easy. All it took was mixed dust, electricity, and time. _

_ Mixed dust is the key to the entire process, with some scientists proposing that dust is connected to the fabric of the universe in some fundamental way, or that mixed dust was particularly receptive to some sort of cosmic radiation. Whatever the case, given time masses of mixed dust will flow into certain shapes that when supplied with outside energy, warp or bend __space-time.__ With an advanced computer, instead of being a shot in the dark this folding can be done purposefully to jump out of space at any point. Instant, faster than light travel, disregarding the cool down it takes for the dust to reorganize or shift into the proper shape. No attempts to speed up this process ha__ve__ ever cut down the time, with it remaining __slightly less than one day despite serious scientific efforts. However, this warping comes across a major issue: flying blind._

_ Warping into any old place has a tendency to lead to accidents, because if a ship warps into a space where another ship is… physics does not particularly agree with the process, and reacts with explosions. The threat of jumping straight into an asteroid belt or another ship led to the set up of a complex network of beacons, relay stations, and schedules where groups of ships would jump around the same time. Because faster than light communication was much harder to achieve than simple travel, sending warnings about debris was impossible in most places, meaning that jumping straight into a system has been the doom of many a good ship._

_ Faster than Light communication can of course be done by carrying the message via ship and then using normal radio transmission to send messages once the ship has jumped, but there are primitive methods to accomplish the same process without having to jump. These are the CCT Satellites, which use experimental quantum entanglement in order to communicate instantaneously across massive distances. However, these systems are expensive and are usually only used for messages of extreme importance. Most, other than some experimental models in research facilities, were destroyed when the Vale fell._

* * *

** Another chapter. I hope I'm not getting your hopes up for a consistent schedule and clockwork updates, but I do feel a compulsion to finish what I've started. Please, if you notice plot holes, issues, grammar, whatever, I would be more than happy to read a review about. The follows and favourites I've already gotten, along with Combine117's review are appreciated. Once again, I'd like to note how ruthlessly I copy from other pieces of media. Starbound and _Journey Into the Stars_ are great inspirations to me and I'd recommend reading the latter and playing the former. Also, a cliffhanger two chapters in! **


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